Wai Yan Chan Artist's Statement Try to forget something. Try. Make a conscious effort to not remember something which is in some way significant to you. A though, an idea. A phrase. A snatch of a melody, or a lyric. ïI just canÍt get you out of my headƒÍ. A hook. A mnemonic. A particular sound or image or smell or taste. Something joyful. Something painful. Something annoying or irritating. ïI know a song thatÍll get on your nerves, get on your nerves, get on your nervesƒÍ. Try to wipe it from your memory. Go on. Try. We talk of things being burned into our memories. Burned. How might one then burn something out of oneÍs memory? Something which is of such vital, painful significance that it can no longer be borne? An idea which must be un-thought. Trying to remember something, striving to retain it, to signify it into permanence, is one thing. Trying to forget, is another. Trying to burn it out of our consciousness. Here, then, we might conceivably begin to signify the very act of de-signification, commemorate the very process of de-commemoration. The unwanted thought becomes cherished. An unwanted cherished thought. In trying to forget we cannot but remember all the more. Translate this into an artifact. A real-world, solid referent. Mirror the attempt to burn the idea away by striking a match each time the process of unremembering is performed. How ironic. How apt. Self-hatred becomes narcissism. It is always-already narcissism. If we look into the mirror and the reflection refuses to meet our gaze, it does not alter the fact that we looked in the first place. What can be achieved by looking at our own dead selves? The image is dead. It makes no difference if it is still or moving, live or pre-recorded. Pretending to be dead. Is that killing oneself? Or is it ensuring that we survive? In trying to let everything go we might simply reinforce the strength of our grip. Contradiction is inescapable. It intersects every moment of lived culture. It is everywhere. It pervades everyday life and all who inhabit it, insidious, saturating. Like stepping 5 metres off the road in the woods around Chernobyl. We are all off that road. We live out contradiction. We speak it into existence. It burns us into significance. Contradiction is everything. Images of work Brief CV EDUCATION 2003 - 2004 MA Fine Art, Chelsea College of Art and Design 2002-2003 Postgraduate Diploma in Fine Art. Chelsea College of Art and Design 2000-2002 BA (Hons) Fine Art, Croydon College, University of Sussex. SELECTED EXHIBITIONS 2006 Video Screening Brixton, London The Bigger Picture, Triangle Square, Manchester 2005 Resist, Video Show, Reception, Cremer street, London Subsist, Video Show, Reception, Cremer street, London 2004 Besame Mucho, Video Show, Hoxton Hall, London RESIDENCIES 2006 Whisper Residency, Chinese Art Centre, Manchester PROFESSIONAL ARTS EXPERINCE 2005 ¿ 2006 Co-founding Curator, Meals & SUVs, London E8 4EN (www.mealsandsuvs.com) 2004 Co-founder, Reception Art Team, Reception, London E2 2001 Curator ¿ ñIncubationî, Croydon Curator- ñParamount Showî, Croydon Contact Email: wai.y.chan@btinternet.com All content © the artists and EASTonline